Discovery

Jason’s post earlier today about The Price Is Right reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about for years: what are the best and worst prizes you can win on the show

This is all personal opinion, of course. Where I might frown or shrug at a prize I might win another person will scream and jump down about. But I think there are certainly some prizes we can all agree are pretty lame. Below are the six that come to mind. Five of them you’ll probably agree with, but I bet several of you will have a problem with number six.

1. Sauna/hot tub. This could be great for someone with a big house and a yard (and extra room), but who else could use this I’ve been waiting three decades for someone to sarcastically say to Bob (and now Drew) “yeah, that will look great in my studio apartment.”

2. Jet ski. Wow, talk about a product designed for a specific type of person. You’d have to really be into sports of this type (and live near water) to use something like this. I bet this is a prize that a lot of contestants sell on Craigslist. “For sale: one unused jet ski. I won it playing the Grocery Game on The Price Is Right! Must sell.”

3. A chandelier. WTF

4. Karaoke machine. I think this will be fun for about six days (four if you have kids), and then you’re going to say “this is all I won on The Price Is Right ”

5. Trampoline. This is one of those gifts that are offered and you can kinda see the excitement drain from the face of the contestant who might win it. A trampoline! That looks like … fun.

6. A car. Yeah, that’s right, a car. Everyone screams and jumps up and down and wets their pants when Rich announces that the prize is a car, and I was always excited as a kid when that was the prize (ah, the days when a new car was well under $10,000), but now I see it as just another bill to pay: taxes, insurance, gas, maintenance on the car, and who knows if you can even get a car close to your home or have to drive the thing from the West Coast. Maybe it’s an L.A. thing, getting excited over cars. If the show was filmed in New York City they’d probably have less car prizes.